


After it Happens

by cousingreg



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Catholicism, Christianity, Dissociation, Gen, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Other, Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:41:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29409249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cousingreg/pseuds/cousingreg
Summary: After it happens, Mac changes, but everything else refuses to.
Relationships: Charlie Kelly & Mac McDonald, Mac McDonald & Dennis Reynolds
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	After it Happens

After it happens he stares at the picture of Jesus, a hand on his heart and another held up. Brown eyes burrowing into his own, long shaggy hair and a halo of light surrounding him. Mac remembers where he got this particular painting from, a run job with Charlie and Dennis when they were barely entering their twenties, part of their heist to get enough money for the bar. He saw it in the haul and he knew he had to have it. It felt like God was speaking to him through this painting. He wasn’t so sure about the bar, about his life in general at the time, but this painting told him he was on the right track.

Next to Jesus is Mary, Mother Mary. Head covered and eyes sorrowful and happy. She holds a hand up, too. ‘ _Hail Mary Mother, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…’_ He reaches out to her a hand splayed against the wood and without really thinking about it, picks her up off of the wall. He lands her on his bed and reaches for Jesus, pausing momentarily, eyes locked on his as the throbbing pain continues. His eyes slide away as his heart twists and he takes Him down too.

Stacking them one on top of the other, he walks over to his closet and sips them inside, leaning against the far right and shutting the closet door tightly behind them, vowing never to open it again. At least not for a while. Not now, not- He’s not sure until when, just that he can’t.

Mac walks back over to his bed and stares at the two silver crosses hung up. He leaves them, the symbol of suffering making tears fill up in his eyes. He pulls back the blanket on his bed and burrows underneath, face pressed into the mattress bare and without sheets, the way he’s used to. The way he knows. His eyes stay on the door to his bedroom, the light fading, but his eyes never leave the darkening shape, body alert and on edge. Filled with glitter and dirt, he drifts…

\---

“ _GODDAMIT!_ MAC, HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO MOVE YOUR GODDAMN CLOBBER OF SHOES!?” Dennis’ voice is loud, and it bangs on Mac’s skull. Makes his mind drift to terrible awareness, something dry and dead in his mouth. The world around him fuzzy, the clock reading somewhere near four in the morning.

He listens to the pounding anger of his best friend. Feet kicking his shoes across the floor, the slam of the refrigerator, the cursing of God. It fades soon enough, ending with the slamming of Dennnis’ door. Mac was expecting more. He did leave Charlie alone with a leprechaun, but it must have worked out, right? He’s fine. Charlie always is.

He rolls over and sinks deeper into his bed, but he doesn’t sleep. The ticking of the clock and dirtiness drives him to wakefulness, but he dares not move. He doesn’t want to wake Dennis, and he can’t for some reason. He just can’t.

When the light bridges the horizon, he does get up. Stands in his room and looks to his bed full of green sparkly glitter. It disgusts him. Horrifies him. He reaches for the blanket and pillow, and strips them off, carrying them into the kitchen through to the washing machine. Slamming them in and stuffing a lot of soap with it. Mac feels some strange satisfaction with the way it roars to life and disappears in a swirl of hot water and soapiness. _Clean._

He, himself isn’t.

Will he ever be?

Mac takes a shower, clothes thrown off of him, soiled and not worth the wash. He stuffs them in a bag he found in the bottom of his bathroom sink and steps into hot water that burns. He changes into jeans and a shirt, but his shirt leaves his arms bare, and he doesn’t want to be bare anymore, _again._ He finds a hoodie that Charlie left behind and it’s got that sewer smell on it, but Mac doesn’t care. It reminds him of their childhood throwing rocks, laughing together, and getting really high. Forgetting the world. Forgetting his father…

“Mac what the hell!? I was going to do laundry! You know it’s my day to do laundry!” Dennis yells.

Mac walks out into the kitchen and finds Dennis shaking his head his way, warms filled with clothing. All Mac can do is stare. Words tumbling, a turmoil to act or to do nothing sits within. He wonders which he chose. He can’t remember.

“Earth to Mac! Oh, you know what? Screw it. I’m taking these to Dee’s.”

He walks out, and Mac knows that he should be sad or go after him like he usually would, but all he wants is a cup of coffee, with a little bourbon from under the sink. The kind his dad used to drink, loved even. The kind he has only for emergency celebrations. This is not a celebration. But it is an emergency. Even if there is no urgency to it, to it all, to any of it anymore.

He makes the coffee and the rhythm helps, so does the quiet.

The sun shines, and it’s a new day. How did that happen, hey?

\---

After it happens he drinks coffee in a big mug made of blue, almost green. He sips it with the taste of bourbon and wonders if Dennis will come back. He’s his ride to work after all. His hood comes up and he hides in it, but it’s not really his, it’s Charlie’s, and yet he doesn’t even care if it messes up his hair. He doesn’t really care at all, really.

“Dee’s being a bitch again, I guess I’ll have to do this later.” Dennis glares and takes his laundry with him through the front door to his own. “We leave in fifteen!”

When Dennis comes back though he walks into the kitchen and stares at him peculiarly. He walks over slowly, deliberately, and Mac fights the urge not to pull away as he leans in and sniffs the coffee. “Did you make coffee, Mac? And is that bourbon?” 

“Yeah, it is.” Mac tells him, and still holding the mug he steps towards the front door and says, “I’ll wait in the car.”

He doesn’t want to be around Dennis right now. He feels stupid and small, and unworthy of it all. Of _him._

\---

After it happens they’re in the car to Paddy’s and Dennis is sneaking glances at him the whole way there. He drives, Mac doesn’t. Mac sits with his hood up and eyes fixed on the cars that pass them by. He feels tired, that bone dreary weariness that only comes from staying up until the sun does, never having slept at all.

“Hey is that Charlie’s sweater? Oh God, it is, it smells like sewage!”

“Not really.” Mac replies with as Dennis covers his nose, except that- “Okay, yeah, it does. But Charlie likes it and so do I.”

He curls into it more, bringing his legs up to his chest on the seat of Dennis’ car, big clunky shoes that are his spare pair. The ones he wore last night and all those clothes he has from then are in a bag in the backseat. He’s going to throw them in the furnace when they get to work.

“Come on dude, no shoes on the upholstery!” Dennis yells and Mac is quick to kick the shoes off, Dennis’ angry attitude, his surly mood is not unforeign territory, but it makes Mac’s ears burn and buzz, and he just wants a little more silence. _The club was so loud._

When they get there Mac ties his shoes back on and his hood has fallen back. Hair half wet, half dried springs free, dancing in all directions. Mac doesn’t care. Without the gel it feels freeing. Loose, and by his own design. He carries the clothes in and walks to the basement, throwing them into the fire. When he gets back upstairs, he comes face to face with the gang.

“Well there you are dipshit. We couldn’t find you anywhere last night.” Dee says with her usual bitchiness.

“Yeah, not cool. I had to carry Charlie inside high on paint on my own.” Half yells Frank, but it’s mostly annoyance that burns bright, but will soon fade.

Charlie turns to him and gives him an incredulous look. “I- I didn’t drink that much paint.” He’s clearly lying as he half smiles, dancing from one foot to the next.

“Dude, you thought you caught a leprechaun! And you were going to eat and kill him!”

“Yeah… But I didn’t.” Charlie says with a huff, and the others roll their eyes.

Dee’s saying something else, but Mac can’t her, his eyes are on a shattered bottle on the floor, foaming beer now flaccid as it creates rings around the mess. In fact the whole bar is a mess, an homage to St. Paddy’s day, a day that was supposed to be there best. A day- Day-

His chest heaves a little, he’s forgetting how to breathe.

“It’s not my fault that Mac went to the gay club and got laid! If anyone is to blame for the state of the bar, it’s him.” Dennis sounds so sure and smug, and angry, but with undercurrents of hurt. Mac can hear and recognize it, and if he was who he was yesterday, before it happened, he’d have tried to reassure Dennis. Paint him some half-cocked story that somehow makes sense, that excuses some of it. Where they can all just bury their heads in the sand, but he can’t. Because he’s not.

“I’ll clean up.” He says instead, and he reaches for the broom and dustpan, narrowing in on the broken beer bottle first. Needing that to be cleaned up and put away. Disappearing. Although he’ll always know that the bottle broke here, there might even beer stains for days, forever.

“I’ll help.” Charlie says with a nod. “Why don’t you guys go get us some breakfast burritos, huh? Ones with the little… Uh… Spikes!”

The others are confused and there’s more arguing, but Mac is bent focused on picking up all the pieces of glass.

“Hey, dude.” Charlie smiles as he kneels down beside him to help.

Mac doesn’t glance at him but they both know that he heard.

“Is that my hoodie?”

“Left it at ours.”

Charlie nods. “Right, look did everything go okay last night? I mean, you were gone all night. You know you can talk to me right, I mean I don’t care… Whatever you’re into is cool, you know that right?”

Mac clutches the glass in his hand, cutting and splicing delicate fabrics of skin wide open as he turns to Charlie. Charlie who looks concerned as he eyes the blood, trying to point it out but Mac couldn’t care less. He grabs onto Charlie’s jacket, tightly and brings his face close. “I’m. Not. Gay.”

Charlie nods frantically. “Alright, alright, cool. Whatever. Jeez, dude. I was trying to help.”

Charlie moves away and Mac is left with dying flames. Eyes frantic on the floor of beer, lost in it as Charlie’s footsteps fade away. “I don’t need your help.” He says, but Charlie is already gone, and he’s not sure now if he’s trying to convince Charlie or himself.

\---

After it happens he stays behind the bar, a barrier between himself and everyone else. Mac knows that it won’t really prevent anyone from getting to him if they wanted to, but it will give him enough warning to stop them before they can, or run. Whatever is easiest. As long as he does something. As long as the others can notice.

Mac starts handing out beers and taking money. Bartending behind the bar. Dennis says with a snide remark of, “Our only security is suddenly a bartender now!” But no one else seems to care or notice. In fact Dee winks at him once with a soft, “Thanks,” and, “I owe you.” They both know she’ll never own up to owing anything, to him or anyone else.

He makes sure the money is in the till and that there is enough of it. He cleans the countertops and cleans the dishes. Charlie smiles at his help saying, “Thanks dude, those rats are like an army, it’s taking all my focus off cleaning glasses but they’re still fine, right?” He’s pointing at the dirty ones in the clean side. Mac takes all the glasses out and cleans them all after that. It gives some order, some semblance of something in this chaos.

He forgets about schemes and hurting people, taking and taking. He lets it go, except it doesn’t feel like it was his choice. It’s as though it was stolen. Taken. So many things have been taken from him. His father. God. Charlie. _Peace._

“Seriously, Mac, we could use your help on this.” Dennis says to him as the others sit on the other side of the bar, beers in hand as they finish their last touches on the ‘plan.’

Mac sort of smiles and says, “Sorry guys, but I’m pretty busy here.”

Crickets could be heard in the emptiness of the bar. “Yeah? Who with Mac?” Dennis asks and it’s almost jealous, confusing the heck out of Mac but he lets it go as Dee says to Dennis as she drags him and the others away, “We’re going to be late, come on. Leave Sad Mac alone.”

Charlie’s eyes linger, on Mac, on the hoodie of his that he always wears. But he too leaves and Mac wonders if they’re even really that good of friends. If he really is alone.

But the dishes need cleaned, and the money needs counted.

\---

After it happens he stares at the dryer as it goes around and around. Hot burning pillow and pillow case coming out with a blanket full of static fuzz. Mac brings it to his room and stares at the mattress filled with glitter. Eyes sinking over to the exercise bike. He decides and reacts without thinking. The warm encasings of blanket and pillows so familiar go to the corner of the room in an untouched part that’s still alive. Still clean.

“Are you going to order Chinese or what? I’m starving here, I didn’t have breakfast or lunch remember. You’re the one who says I should eat at least one meal.” Dennis’ voice is a touch whiny, and a tad dramatic but Mac doesn’t respond. He finds a vacuum they never use and turn it to its highest setting. Most of the glitter fades away.

“MAC!”

He grips the vacuum under his arm and takes the exercise bike under his other. Dennis is glaring, an astonished anger that used to make Mac drop to his knees. Now all it does is leave him slightly annoyed, breathy- _breathless_.

“Earth to Mac!?”

“Order for me.” Mac tells him and heads to the front door.

Dennis gets up, almost following. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Out.”

He slams the door shut and heads to the dumpster a few streets over. He lights a match and watches the world burn. All traces into smoldering ash, into a rainstorm of white and grey. He runs before the police get there, making it to a Bed Bath & Beyond before it closes. He picks up a flannel sheet, grey and soft, and new. _Clean._ Warm.

Mac thinks of Dennis’ gaunt face, of his growling stomach and assurance that all he needs is a Gatorade. And Mac learns something else then. He learns that no matter how much he doesn’t care, he always will.

He picks up Dennis’ favourite from his favourite Chinese place, _their_ favourite. He takes it home with the sheet and watches as Dennis slumps over in front of the TV. A beer in hand and eyes purposely not looking his way even though Mac can tell that he wants to. His whole body tight. A clear giveaway.

Mac can’t help but smile softly. He tosses the sheet on his bed and carries the food into the living room, a beer of his own under one hand. He chooses the chair, a good distance between them that has Dennis side eying him, but he doesn’t comment. Mac is forever grateful.

“Come on, you gotta eat. It’s from our favourite place.” He tries to smile, if only for Dennis. “One meal a day at least, remember dude?”

He tries to catch his eyes, and Dennis slides his over, unable to resist his own until finally he jumps up with a genuine and true smile. “Whatever.” He grumbles, but Mac can tell that he’s happy. Appreciative, even if he is spilling abuse about how Mac never gets enough chicken balls, and even he knows that there’s a joke in there somewhere.

“What are we watching?”

“Terminator 2.”

Mac’s grin widens, almost real. “Awesome!”

He cracks open a beer and Dennis holds his out, clinking them together, but Mac sits on the sitting chair, not as close as possible to Dennis like he used to. Like he usually does. The exercise bike burns when he would be riding it, a sheet for his bed that he’s never used before not even as a baby. His pictures of Jesus and Mother Mary sit in the back of his closet, and his hands shake when he almost touches Dennis’. Even though he knows he’s okay. _Safe._ There’s a quiver in his heart, a misstep in his step.

He wears Charlie’s sweater, a hoodie of faint sewage, of a time when all dreams and nightmares were possible. When he could pretend.

“Pass the plum sauce.”

Mac passes it.

\---

After it happens Mac spreads out a sheet and hides under a warm blanket and a pillow smelling of laundry soap. As a kid he used to do the laundry, for his mom who was always working, and he’d pin up the clothing to a line him and Charlie fasten from some old fishing equipment. His grandfather’s, the only thing the old bastard left him when he died. Mac was just three though. He pinned them up and many would scatter away with the wind, but many others would smell of fresh air and a breeze so light, Mac felt like he was floating. Floating all the way up to the angels.

Now he’s still on a bed, a mattress, and a new sheet. He hears the cars honk below and tastes the cigarette smell that’s always there. The coating of unfurled smoke along his walls, where he’d smoke, trying to get closer to his mom. She stopped calling for a while. Three years. It was hard.

There’s no bike anymore, no Jesus either, only a cross filled with suffering and Mac asking himself, ‘ _Why?_ ’

His eyes drift shut and he noses into the familiarity of Charlie, of friendship, and love, and he sleeps, filled up with the void he’s found himself surrounded in and by.

\---

After it happens he drinks coffee and bourbon for breakfast. He goes to work and at around one orders a breakfast burrito. At five he has some limes. At seven he drinks a beer. At around four in the morning it’s usually takeout. If he’s lucky a sandwich at twelve. He doesn’t scheme. He hands out beers in exchange for money, drinks, and he smells the cigarette smoke, hoping for it to catch into a new kind of flame.

“This is just pathetic.” Dee says one day.

“You’re pathetic.” Charlie bites back, always the loyal friend. “Bird.”

Everyone laughs and Mac hands a beer over, a small smile on his own lips that he knows they all catch.

“Seriously though, man, when are you going to stop this ‘Sad Mac’ routine. I get that some guy must have dumped you at the Rainbow, but come on, it couldn’t have been that bad.” Dennis is laughing, hiding away his insecurities, not a care for anyone but himself. And it hurts. Even when it shouldn’t. Even when he knows better.

“It’s depressing.” Frank chimes in.

“At least I don’t do coke every morning.” Is his instant reply.

“Just a bottle of bourbon.” Dee mumbles over her coke can of wine.

Mac can’t argue with that, but some limes need dicing, so he moves away from them to do just that.

\---

After it happens he wears Charlie’s hoodie more often than he should, almost every day in fact. He does wash it, but every time he does, a bit of Charlie and his safety net washes away with it, out. Mac is left with his face pushed into fresh laundry when he’d rather have the faint smell of sewage, of hairspray, and chemicals. Of milk steak.

“Switch sweaters with me, dude.” Mac says one night when they’re in the basement, Mac coming down to get a spare baseball bat to chase some drunks out. Charlie is bashing rats. The furnace blazes on and Mac is left getting lost in it like a trance. The flames dancing, an almost green glitter and spark to it that’s not yet doused out completely.

“Okay.” Charlie says with a shrug as they change out of their hoodies and switch, even though they’re both technically Charlie’s. “I was kind of wondering when I’d get this one back… Oh, it smells so… Nice.”

“Yeah, I washed it.”

“Washed it? Not boiled it?”

Mac scrunches up his eyebrows as he’s filled with dirt and grime, but _home_ all the same. “I thought that was just for the jeans.”

“Oh, no. Boiling’s for hoodies too, although you have to hang those to dry not wear them to dry.”

Mac smiles, gently, almost real. Good old Charlie. He never really changes does he? “I love you.” He tells him, and Charlie stops. His brain short circuiting a little as he shrugs and almost mumbles with eyes downturned, “I- I sort of- I love you- too, man.”

Mac knows that his mom tells him that, he’s lucky like that, but does anyone else? Charlie’s words make him feel like he’s flying, floating up in the clouds with the angels. But he doesn’t get far, he’s still very dirty. The glitter dancing on flames.

Charlie punches his shoulder a little, awkwardly, and Mac’s stomach tightens with fear. His heart hammering in something like real emotion as he quickly grabs the bat and runs upstairs. “Gotta go!”

His heart hammers, and he almost _feels._

He takes a shot of rum and stuffs it down with some brown. And with the baseball bat, he whacks a few people, _not literally_ , and life goes on.

\---

After it happens Jack Kelly walks into the bar, and smiles and nods to a few people. “Heya, fellas.” He says as though this were a normal day, as though they were friends. Mac watches as the others grin, Frank walking up to greet him with handshake. Charlie stiffening, eyes drawing from his uncle to Frank to the others. A fear so pronounced that it makes Mac’s own chest spasm. “What is _he_ doing here?”

“Oh, I called him.” Frank says casually as though it doesn’t matter, as though none of it does. “Yeah we need some legal help _parse_ to get rid of this miner chick who’s backing up my greens on route nine. Mostly we’re just going to scare them off.”

“Always happy to be of service.” Jack salutes with big fake hands that makes Mac shiver because they make Charlie shiver.

“Frank, what the hell!?” He says it without meaning to, coming out in a wave of anger he’s never known he was capable of having. He’s been angry before, all consuming rage that never quits until Dennis touches him gently, calming hand on a flaming bag of shit. But this anger, is new, it’s _real._ It comes from something that tastes distinctly like empathy but Mac is pretty sure it’s coming from his own.

“What?” Frank asks.

But he doesn’t hear him.

_“Dayman… Defeater of the Nightman…”_

_“Troll toll to get inside the boy’s hole!”_

_“No, I WILL NOT BE SHARING A ROOM WITH HIM! NOT AGAIN!”_

_“My uncle stayed over last night, let’s huff some glue...”_

The pieces come together and he feels so stupid and terrible, and _guilty_ that he never put the pieces together before. He wastes no time as tears prick at his eyes, eyes that look to Charlie’s devastated face one last time before he runs on Jack. Hitting him. Wailing on him. He screams like a girl and Mac doesn’t care. He makes him hurt, _bleed_. Suffer.

“MAC!”

“GET HIM OFF! AHHHH!”

He hits and hits and he doesn’t stop, even when Dennis and Dee have their arms around him, dragging him away. He watches with some satisfaction as Jack moans in a gurgle of blood. Hand holding up his arm as he gets to his feet, tears streaming down his eyes. “I think you broke it.” He says pathetically.

“GOOD!” Mac yells, and there is no guilt here. Not for this. “DON’T YOU EVER COME BACK HERE AGAIN! You’re banned from our bar!”

“Wait, hold on.” Dee tries.

“Mac…” Dennis echoes.

Charlie says nothing, eyes wide in shock and something like tears. Mac is blocked by his friends as Frank snorts some coke from his pocket, but Jack hasn’t left. He’s not leaving. Mac grabs a beer bottle and throws it, then another, and another until Jack scurries out like the rat that he is. Once he’s gone, only then does Charlie’s shoulders slump forward.

Mac pulls away from the others and goes to him, hugging him and holding him in a way that he’s never been able to before, whispering just for them, just for Charlie in his ear, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I never got it before, dude. I’m sorry I let him near you… _I’m sorry Charlie._ ”

Charlie is frozen until finally he unthaws and hugs back just as furiously, bone crushingly. Tears wet themselves on his hoodie, on _Charlie’s hoodie._ But he doesn’t care, neither of them do.

They pull away and Charlie wipes away the tears, a careful and hushed hoarse whisper that he’s sure only he hears of, “ _Thanks Dayman._ ”

It’s awkward after that, only because the others are watching and neither of them know what to do next, or what to say, until Charlie looks up with a smile and asks, “Want to huff some glue?”

Mac finds himself matching the grin as he holds out his hand for a high five that Charlie easily meets. “Let’s do it, dude.”

Confusion on the others as they disappear into the basement and find something to make their minds disappear, everything else disappearing with them too.

\---

After it happens, Mac gets so high that he can’t see colour anymore. Usually people say that you should see more colour, he sees none. Dennis is then designated to take him home, and he’s out of it, but he can see how much it annoys him. All loose limbed and bone dead to the world, Dennis puts him in his car.

They get to the apartment and Dennis drops him on his bed. “Fucking bastard, always making me drag you home. Should have called your boyfriend, I’m sure he would have loved this.”

Mac’s eyebrows scrunch up in confusion. _I’m not gay. I’m not gay. I’m not gay._ He wants to say it, but his lips are sealed shut, mouth not cooperating, and what ends up coming out instead is, “I don’t have a boyfriend, Den.”

“Did you take down your Jesus painting?” Dennis asks just as he says it. But once he hears him, Dennis looks down, hands on his hips and eyebrows unsure. “Yeah, I’m sure. That’s why you ditched us for the club and have been all mopey. At least you’re not getting fat again.”

His head is airy and light-headed, thinking is almost impossible, but needing Dennis to know seems far more important than sleep that calls him. “I don’t.” He mumbles. “J- Just don’t. I’ve got you.”

He means that Dennis is high maintenance enough, that he doesn’t have room for anyone with Dennis as his roommate, his friend, but in his brain all muddled it comes out like that. Like something else. In the end he’s not sure what he even means at all.

“I know, come on buddy. Get under the covers.” Dennis pulls them up and around himself, still somewhat annoyed, thinking only of himself as he goes to turn away, to leave and disappear. But Mac won’t let him. He feels… s _omething._ A twinge, a more something than what or who he is and he’s reaching out. A hand on Dennis’ wrist, tight and trapping, and the panic isn’t there because he’s not. His mind is floating away with the angels.

“Is God testing me?” He asks as a clarity comes over him. As Mac thinks of suffering, the crosses above that hang, reminding him of, well, e _verything._ “Maybe this is a test.”

“God doesn’t exist, Mac.” Dennis says, but there’s something different in his tone, something almost like worry as he stops and looks to him. Kneeling down beside his bed as if to pray. Mac’s hand still locked on his wrist.

“He does.” Mac tells him, because he knows it to be true, can feel Him in his heart. In his very soul. _Spirit._

Dennis shakes his head, but something fond is there, something curious as he reaches out and pushes a stray hair of Mac’s back. “Only you would still cling to that in a time like this.”

“In a time like this, Den, I’d be crazy not to.”

Dennis huffs an almost scoff and shakes his head, going to stand up, taking his hand out of Mac’s grip, but Mac doesn’t let up. He holds on tighter and says everything he’s been trying to with, “Librarian. The librarian.”

Dennis freezes, and then rips his hand away just as Mac gently lets go. He leaves the room, slamming the door shut, and Mac is left all alone. Tears prickling at his eyes as he floats higher and higher, a prayer on his lips _for Dennis_. A hushed and horrible reply of, ‘ _I’m sorry,’_ dancing in his mouth.

\---

After it happens Mac comes to work and stands behind the bar as the others sit on the other side. They talk about a new scheme, a new plan, and Mac listens. He takes a beer and with a deep breath, a shake of his hands, he comes out from behind the bar. The others stop talking, looking up briefly in varying degrees of shock and surprise. They don’t say anything as Mac sits with them and smiles. “So, where am I in this?” He asks, and it only takes a few seconds before Frank smiles and gives him his role, his position.

Charlie reaches out and squeezes his arm. Dennis eyes him, but slides those eyes by to the map laid out before them. But he doesn’t bring up the ‘boyfriend’ again. Dee only winks.

Mac drinks his beer.

\---

Later that night he curls into bed, a flashlight in one hand as though he were a child all over again, putting the blanket over his head, his bible in his hands. He opens it up to the first page and reads aloud, along with himself, with God.

“ _In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth.”_ **Genesis 1:1**.

\---

After it happens, Mac changes, but everything else refuses to.


End file.
